William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

(TURNING TOWARD THE DOOR)

If you care to see the stables, Mister Kane?

(CROSSES TO THE DOOR, STOPS AND TURNS IN THE DOORWAY)

My own men, sir, have never "wanted for my respect.

THE MAJOR pauses in the hall, looking round as KANE follows him, exiting left.

WILLIAM

(EAGERLY)

Thomas, you're leaving?

THOMAS

(ABRUPT, VEXATIOUS)

Why, should I wait? Wait and see everything up there taken? What's mine, the way all this is yours?

WILLIAM

(DISCONCERTED, WITHDRAWING A STEP)

No, you… you go. You go, Thomas.

THOMAS

Yes, and think what you like. Think what you like of my leaving.

WILLIAM

(DISTRESSED)

Anything I said Thomas, back in the parlour, anything I said there with Papa, Thomas…

THOMAS

(PAUSES, STUDYING HIM)

You knew, Will, didn't you. About John Israel.

WILLIAM

(MOCKING, AS THOUGH OF THEIR PAST FRIENDSHIP)

The 'noble savage…'

THOMAS

(ABRUPTLY TAKING HIS SHOULDER)

You helped him!

WILLIAM

(FALTERING BACK)

The way we'd talked Thomas…

THOMAS

You… helped him run off, Will?

WILLIAM

(DEFENSIVELY DESPERATE)

Wasn't he the 'noble savage' when we used to talk? That was naturally good, yes, like it was myself, to be free, the 'natural goodness of man' and then… with the war, and both of us left here and me no better off than him, except I could do what he couldn't do for me…

THOMAS

Yes, free him, for what! To be hunted down somewhere and killed?

Seeing someone offstage left, where he is facing, THOMAS waves, calls out as he descends from the veranda and WILLIAM follows to downstage left.

(CALLING)

Here, Henry? You bring me that bay mare round here, saddled.

WILLIAM

(APPEALING, HORRIFIED AT THIS INTERPRETATION)

Thomas… no! No, it was if life could be good, the day 1 saw that if life could be good at all then it had to be good for all men…

THOMAS

(AS DERISIVE AFTERTHOUGHT)

Yes, there, why didn't you set Henry off, your own boy instead of mine?

WILLIAM

But… Henry, he wouldn't have understood…

THOMAS

And my mother, do you think she understood? Left alone down there at The Bells with only old Ambers and Emma to help? And after your father offered to buy him when I brought him up here to work on that staircase, when our barns needed mending at home…

(TAKES OUT HIS WATCH, SNAPS IT OPEN AND LOOKS AT IT IMPATIENTLY)

WILLIAM

(WITHDRAWING A STEP, QUIETLY ASSERTIVE)

You were too proud to sell him Thomas. You only brought him up here to show. A niggra that could read and turn wood, to show what you'd made of him down there. Proud, like you were of me…

— This John Israel now, when does he come in.

— Into the play? you mean come onstage? He doesn't.

— Well then how come they…

— Because that's the idea, Mister Basic. Thomas' mother has taught him to read, that was against the law in some of the slave states so here he is suspended, between what he is and what he never can be. I had an experience last year that will give you the idea. I was robbed. On the Fifth Avenue bus. The Second or Third Avenue you could expect it, but the Fifth Avenue bus? I carry my cash in my left trouser pocket and getting off, changing buses, a tall black fellow right in front of me fell, dark suit, nicely dressed, well built like you are, he fell on the step there with his trouser cuff caught on the open door and I came down holding his shoulders so he wouldn't fall all the way, land on the street. He was twisting and turning, having a hard time freeing his trouser cuff or that's what I thought, what I was supposed to think, somebody pressing behind me but I was so busy holding him up I hardly noticed till finally he got loose, shook himself off and walked away he didn't even turn to thank me, have to say I was annoyed but I thought, there you are, that's New York. Not even that's a black for you but just that's New York. The driver wants to speak to you somebody said, they took your wallet the driver told me, you should call the police. No it's right here I showed him, I carry it in the inside breast pocket like everyone, then a woman standing there said no they did, they robbed you. I was afraid to say anything she said, she was a coloured woman too, they robbed you. They? There were three of them, but here's my wallet I showed her, thanked her, got on the next bus and rode six blocks reading the paper suddenly thought, suddenly put my hand in my pocket and it was gone. I couldn't believe it. Why I'd always carried cash in that trouser pocket, nobody's going to get a hand in there without your knowing it but it was gone. I couldn't believe it.

— You mind if I smoke?

— What? Oh, if you, well no go ahead and smoke if you, you see they all knew what was happening, this coloured woman, the bus driver sitting up there like a tub of pale lard watching it in his rear view mirror now that's New York. A friend of mine did jury duty on a mugging case, the judge picking the jury asked if any of them had ever been mugged and every hand went up, you come out relieved that you weren't stabbed. They all knew I was being robbed except me, I was even cooperating.

— You get the police?

— No, I just said I got on the next bus. I couldn't have identified them if I had, probably why he turned away without thanking me so I wouldn't get a good look at him.

— All look the same though, don't we.

— That's not, no! That's not what I meant at all. Of course I was annoyed, not the money but nobody likes to be made a fool of, but I thought about it later and realized I was just giving something back, paying my dues you might call it. All I've been given in this world you can just look around but you take these three fellows, they'd probably been given damned little but look what they'd done with it. Probably'd never made it through sixth grade but the skill they pulled this act off with, the sheer artistry, smooth, unhurried, talk about theatre and the willing suspension of disbelief there I am helping the one down on the step while the other one's going through my pockets with the third one covering him? Didn't even bother with the wallet, nothing that obvious, no threats, nothing ugly, an elegant piece of theatre and they were gone, didn't even wait for the applause. They were just doing their best with what they'd been given, la carrière ouverte aux talents as Napoleon had it, you had to admire it. You see what I'm getting at.

A smoke ring billowed from the chair, growing larger, heavy with purpose. — Afraid I do, Oscar… and another pursuing it, careening off at a tangent. — Afraid I do.

— Yes well, because the whole idea there, what I meant was simply making the best with what we…

— I know what you meant. Take this idea about natural slaves now, you believe all that?

— I don't have to be a murderer to write a murder mystery do I? The Major believes it that's the point, to make the Major believable as a character defending his beliefs and principles here, it's fight here a few pages later he's talking with Mister Kane again.

THE MAJOR

(SENTENTIOUSLY RETURNING TO TOPICS OF CONSEQUENCE)

That interested me what you had to say earlier, the Greek philosopher that said 'The man without fear cannot be a slave.' The exact thing I was saying myself, I believe. Yes, they had an idea of these things, the Greeks did, looking after the natural order of things.

KANE

(MASKING HIS AGITATION WITH EFFORT)

And the slaves who worked in the mines, what of them? Who worked in the mines until they died, because they had no immortal souls, and could die in the darkness, was that it? Was that the natural order?

THE MAJOR

Yes, we've improved there, as a purely practical question. They are too valuable for such treatment here. When they are sick or injured, who takes care of them? No sir! We cannot afford to throw them aside here, the way men who can't work any longer are thrown aside by the Yankees. Of course it's the natural order. Why, hasn't Lincoln himself let the Southern leaders know that he has no intention or power to interfere with slavery down here?